首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Is Wal-Mart going wobbly? Over the past couple of weeks, America’s largest company--linchpin of the low-wage, no-benefit economy
Is Wal-Mart going wobbly? Over the past couple of weeks, America’s largest company--linchpin of the low-wage, no-benefit economy
admin
2013-01-12
62
问题
Is Wal-Mart going wobbly? Over the past couple of weeks, America’s largest company--linchpin of the low-wage, no-benefit economy that is increasingly the norm in America--has announced some surprising reversals of course. In a series of speeches and interviews, chief executive H. Lee Scott unveiled four initiatives that he clearly hopes will polish the company’s increasingly tarnished image. Wal-Mart, he said, will shift to more environmentally responsible practices--demanding better packaging of its products. It will offer more affordable health insurance to its employees, cutting the monthly premium in some cases to just $11. It will monitor the environmental and health and safety practices of its foreign suppliers. And it will lobby for a higher federal minimum wage.
Scott’s timing is anything but accidental. The sweatshop conditions in which thou-sands of employees of Wal-Mart’s suppliers routinely work, and the depressive effect that Wal-Mart has on working-class living standards here in the United States, are receiving increasing scrutiny--enough to impede the company’s growth. Wal-Mart’s at-tempts to open stores in the major cities of the Northeast and West Coast have been largely checked by a coalition of fearful and irate unions, smaller retailers, churches and liberal activists. Wal-Mart’s stock is down 13 percent this year. And worse is still to come. So the leopard realized it was time to change its spots-up to a point. Only 44 percent of Wal-Mart’s nearly 1. 3 million U.S. employees are covered under its health insurance plan. Now the company says it will make its insurance more affordable.
Of all Scott’s commitments, the one that does merit belief is his out-of-the-blue declaration of support for a higher minimum wage. For Wal-Mart is bumping up against a serious problem at least partly of its own making: Because it pitches its products to a disproportionately low-income client, its revenue rises and falls with the fortunes of the lower end of the American working class. And those fortunes these days are anything but bright. The coming crunch in heating oil prices, the decimation of American manufacturing, the steady decline of median family incomes over the past several years, the failure to raise the federal minimum wage since 1997--all these are combining to limit the ability of Wal-Mart shoppers to buy as much as they used to.
Wal-Mart, could, of course, raise its workers’ wages, but Scott has dismissed that out of hand. So now it’s the feds’ responsibility to rescue Wal-Mart from the consequences of the low-wage, low-consumption economy that Wal-Mart, with such fanatical devotion, has created. For, in Wal-Mart’s America, it’s not clear that even Wal-Mart can thrive.
According to Paragraph 2, the reason Why Wal-Mart wants to make changes is that ______ .
选项
A、an accident took place in Wal-Mart’s suppliers’ sweatshop
B、Wal-Mart attempts to open stores in the major cities of the Northeast Coast
C、a certain union bought 13 percent Wal-Mart’s stock this year
D、none of these
答案
D
解析
从第2段开头我们得知,做改变并不是偶然的,Scott’s timing is anything but accidental,准确答案只能是D。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Dw9O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
AlbertEinsteinonceattributedthecreativityofafamousscientisttothefactthathe"neverwenttoschool,andthereforepr
71.TheinternationalsoftwaremarketrepresentsasignificantbusinessopportunityforU.S.microcomputersoftwarecompanies,b
UptonSinclair,anAmericanwriterofthe20thcentury,showedhis______geniusforrecreatingsocialhistoryinhisnovels.
Heshouldbedismissedforhis______remarksabouthisimmediatesuperiors.
Theamendments(of)thelawsonpatent,trademarkandcopyright(haveenhanced)protectionof(intellectualproperty)rightsand
Oneofthebasiccharacteristicsofcapitalismistheprivateownershipofthemajormeansofproduction-capital.Theownership
Traderelationshipsbetweenthetwocountrieswillimproveiftheir______leaderscouldagreeontheproposedquotas.
Knowledgeofmicroscopicanatomywasgreatlyexpandedduringthe20thcenturyasaresultofthedevelopmentofmicroscopesthat
【66】Astateuniversitypresidentwasarrestedtodayandchargedwithimpersonateapoliceofficerbecame,theauthoritiessay,h
Ms.Rice,withcustomaryclass,simplyexpressedhopethatthisepisodewouldn’t_____thecharityinspiteofthepreviousscandals
随机试题
资本主义社会的第一部民法典是()
关于X线影像质量的评价,错误的是
女性,26岁,孕32周,诉阴道分泌脓性分泌物增多3天,查体:阴道内见大量脓性分泌物,宫颈红肿,黏膜外翻,取颈管内分泌物送检,结果回示:淋菌及沙眼衣原体皆为阳性对胎儿及新生儿影响不恰当的是
一期止血缺陷是指()
下列不属于影响工程咨询服务项目进度的常见因素是()。
使用财务报表的主体包括()。Ⅰ.公司的债权人Ⅱ.公司的潜在投资者Ⅲ.公司的经理人员Ⅳ.公司的现有投资者
朝鲜族的歌舞蜚声全国,2009年()被列入《人类口头与非物质文化遗产名录》。
皇权和相权的矛盾是君主专制中央集权制度中的基本矛盾。这一矛盾基本解决是在()
Manytheoriesconcerningthecausesofjuveniledelinquency(crimescommittedbyyoungpeople)focuseitherontheindividualor
Newtechnologylinkstheworldasneverbefore.Ourplanethas【B1】______.It’snowa"globalvillage"wherecountriesareonlysec
最新回复
(
0
)